Posted
by
timothy
on Sunday August 07, 2011 @06:58PM
from the mix-n'-match dept.

An anonymous reader writes "You can now use the PS3 Sixaxis Controller on Android phones and devices. This requires your phone to be rooted, however it is incompatible with most HTC devices and some newer Samsung devices due to the need of specific Bluetooth protocol. It can sync four controllers at once with buttons completely configurable."

When it comes to old 2D games the Playstation 3 controller is pretty much the best on the market, thanks to its solid dpad. Also there really aren't many alternatives to begin with. The Xbox360 controller doesn't talk Bluetooth and the Wiimote lacks a lot of buttons. A Wiimote and a ClassicController together would work, but would be rather bulky. And as far as normal PC controller go: There aren't many Bluetooth controller either, most wireless ones talk their own proprietary protocol.

Can't answer the general case, but when it comes to the Playstation 3 controller the situation is basically this (at least as far as I understand it):

1) you connect the controller via USB to let him now the Bluetooth address of your computer/phone2) you press the button on the controller to power it up3) the controller now contacts your computer and says hello4) your computer needs an application running to answer that call

The problem is step 4), the Playstation 3 controller seems to use well known ports for this (HID stuff I think) and your average OS already has an application listening on those ports, thus you can't just add another application to listen on the same ports and have to kill whatever is already running there to make it work. It's essentially the same thing as when you want to run two webservers on port 80, it simply doesn't work.

With the Wiimote in adhoc mode the situation is much simpler, as it is the computer that is contacting the Wiimote, not the Wiimote the computer. Thus there are no ports on the computer to worry about and you can simply run a Wiimote app on the PC and have that talk to the Wiimote. The Wiimote however can also be synced with the PC (when pressing the red sync button instead of 1+2), when that is done the situation reverses again, its now the Wiimote contacting the PC. Not sure what ports it uses for that and if there are any conflicts.

But then I ask something like, "Can I replace the 'telephone' app freely then?" and they nod eagerly and say, "Yep, you totally can, you just jailbreak it like this and-"...

If you mean the dialer app, then yes you can replace it, without rooting. In fact, there is very little you must root to do. Off the top of my head I have only had to root to do the following:

Install custom ROMs/patches.
Run a personal firewall/ad blocker.
Run a wireless tether app that doesn't require that I pay the phone company extra.
Run a VNC server.
Run a program that over/underclocks my phone.